am not going to, and for two
reasons. To begin with, you will do it better--"

"My _dear_ Robert!"

"Twice as effectively--and all the more effectively if you contrive
to break down. _That_ would conciliate them at once; for it would be
evident proof that you disliked the job."

"I don't quite see."

"The religion of these good people very largely consists in shaping
their immortal souls against the grain: and I admire it, in a sense,
though on the whole it's not comparable with ours, which works
towards God by love through a natural felicity. Still, it is
disciplinary, and this country will have great use for it in the next
few months. To do everything you dislike, and to do it thoroughly,
will carry you quite a long way in war-time. The point at which
Protestantism becomes disreputable is when you so far yield to loving
your neighbour that you start chastising his sins to the neglect of
your own. I have never quite understood why charity should begin at
home, but I am sure that discipline ought to: and I sometimes think
it ought to stay there."

"That Mrs Polsue has such a disapproving face! . . . I wonder she
ever brought herself to marry."

"If you had only been following my argument, Agatha, you would see
that probably she had no time for repugnance, being preoccupied in
getting the poor fellow to do what he disliked. . . . Secondly--"

"Oh! A sermon!"

"Secondly," pursued the Vicar with firmness, "this War is so great a
business that, to my mind, it just swallows up--effaces--all scruples
and modesties and mock-modesties about precedence and the like.
If any one sees a job that wants doing, and a way to put it through,
he will simply have no time to be humble and let another man step
before him. The jealousies and the broken pieces of Etiquette can be
left to be picked up after the smoke has cleared away; and by that
time, belike, they will have cleared away with the smoke. Do you
remember that old story of Hans Andersen's, about the gale that
altered the signboards? Well, I prophesy that a good many signboards
will be altered by this blow, up and down England, perhaps even in
our little parish. If it teach us at all to see things as they are,
we shall all be known, the rest of our lives, for what we proved
ourselves to be in 1914."

"I saw in this morning's paper," said Mrs Steele, "that over at Troy
they have an inn called the King of Prussia, and the Mayor and
Corporation think of changi